Unexpected
by Imaginary Peanut Butter
Summary: Companion to 'Just Kids'. Lily's nineteen and has just discovered she's pregnant. She and James don't handle this particularly well. Rated for the Marauders' occasional use of bad language.


They were at an Order meeting when the thought first struck her. She'd arrived early, as she usually did (after turning up twenty minutes late and covered in flour to her third meeting, she'd decided that arriving early was much less embarrassing), and to her surprise found several people already there. More surprising than this was the tight hug she suddenly found herself in the second she walked through the door.

"Lily!"

"Hello, Sirius," she smiled into his shoulder.

"I hope you realise that you'll be violently murdered if you suffocate my girlfriend," said a rather conversational voice. Sirius released Lily, and almost immediately she found herself in the arms of another person. This one smelled slightly of tea and chocolate, in a strange, almost dusty sort of way. He let go of her very quickly, and was soon replaced by a shorter, podgier, soap-scented boy who flashed a smile at her before hugging her.

"Hello, James," she said finally, after extricating herself from Peter's hug.

"Oh, you've noticed me?" James said. The intended effect of mock-offence was lost slightly because of the large grin he bestowed upon his girlfriend. He, too, hugged her (rather more exuberantly than his friends had) and then planted a kiss on her lips. He then picked up a half-finished cup of tea from the table and offered it to her.

"That's mine!" Remus exclaimed.

"Bit possessive of your tea there, Moony," Sirius commented lazily, taking a sip from his own mug of coffee (milky, with three sugars). Remus raised an eyebrow and snatched his tea from James's hand. Lily giggled.

"You have strange taste in friends," observed a pretty, blonde-haired young woman of around twenty-five. She held out a red mug emblazoned with a large golden phoenix. "James said you like two sugars."

"Thanks, Alice," Lily said, taking the mug. She sipped her tea and watched the boys' argument in amusement.

"They haven't changed a bit since they were in their first year," Alice said nostalgically. "Trying to keep Gryffindor in order when a bunch of idiot firsties are running around breaking rules was awful."

"I can imagine," Lily shuddered. "I used to wish they'd all fail and get kept back a year so I wouldn't have to deal with them in classes."

Alice laughed at this. "I remember you telling me that – you were just this little red-headed firstie, and I remember admiring your confidence, because I'd never have dared approach a sixth-year when I was eleven."

"No one was scary if they had any power to get rid of those stupid Marauder boys," Lily smiled.

"Yet somehow you ended up _being_ one of them!"

"I realised they were loveable as well as being idiots," shrugged Lily. "Not much different to your Frank, really. How is he?"

"He's not grown up," Alice said fondly. "You should've seen his excitement when I told him I was pregnant!"

Lily stared. "You're pregnant?"

"I only found out the other day! I suddenly realised my period was late, and then I got the test, and..."

Dumbledore chose to appear at that moment, and there was a sudden rush for chairs. Lily found herself sat in the middle of the table between Peter and Sirius, and she barely listened to what Dumbledore was saying.

Alice was pregnant. Her period had been late. Lily couldn't remember when her last period had been – was it supposed to have come last week, or the week before? And had that throwing up the other day been a bug, or was it telling her something else? Lily didn't _want_ to be pregnant. She wasn't even twenty yet! She'd only been living by herself for two months, and still ate most meals at her parents' house because of her inability to cook anything more complicated than fish fingers!

"Lily," Sirius hissed, bringing her out of her internal panic. "We're going. Are you coming?"

"Oh!" Lily smiled apologetically at the rest of the Order (who were giving her rather strange looks) and got up to follow the boys out. "Why are we going?"

"Weren't you listening?" Remus frowned.

Lily blushed. "I was tracking Avery 'til nearly two in the morning, I'm exhausted," she fabricated. She _had_ been tracking Avery, but only until eleven. "So why is everyone else still there?"

"He wants one of the oldies to be a spy," Peter explained.

"Apparently escaping Voldemort three times still doesn't count as 'enough experience'," scowled James. "We're always gonna be treated as kids, aren't we?"

Remus snorted. "I think it's more the fact that we'd be terrible spies. What would we say, 'Hello, Mr Voldemort, sir, I know I've fought against you before, but I want to join you now'?"

"And I ran away from home to get away from my family, not to spend more time around them," Sirius added helpfully. "Cheer up, Prongs. You didn't really want to pretend to join the Death Eaters, did you?"

"I s'pose not... oh, shit, it's almost three! We were supposed to meet Mum almost half an hour ago, Padfoot!"

"We'd best be off, then. Moony, Wormtail, you're still coming over tonight?" The two boys nodded. "Good-o. I'll see you tomorrow, Lilyflower, seeing as you're stealing our Prongsie tonight."

James and Sirius both hugged and kissed Lily (leaving her with a rather damp cheek from where Sirius had licked it), clapped Remus and Peter on the shoulder, and Disapparated.

"I'm going now too, before I drown in this rain," Lily decided, and hugged the two remaining boys. "I'll probably see you tomorrow."

Apparating into her warm, dry flat was still her favourite thing about living alone. When she'd lived with her parents, she had been banned from Apparating into the house as the noise often scared one of her parents to the point where they'd drop whatever they were holding. In fact, the convenience of Apparition was one of the reasons she'd found a place of her own in the first place – she couldn't Apparate anywhere in the Muggle town her parents lived in for fear of the neighbours seeing.

Other advantages of living by herself included the lack of questioning by other people. If she wanted to make a potion, she wouldn't be asked what sort of potion she was making, why she was making it, and why in the name of Merlin she liked potion-making, anyway. Lily quite liked living alone. She could make a pregnancy test potion accompanied only by the desperate hope that she was wrong.

Two hours later, when the potion was pink and indicating that she was, in fact, pregnant, Lily decided she hated living alone. What she wanted was for someone to tell her how to make everything all right, how to become a normal nineteen-year-old girl whose only worry was how best to defeat Voldemort. She giggled slightly at that, because her sister hadn't been thinking about Voldemort when _she_ was nineteen, and Petunia was the most fantastically ordinary person Lily had ever known. Half-sobbing, feeling a strange mixture of anger and terror, Lily threw the potion down the sink and had a shower in the hope that it would make her feel better.

When she got out of the shower, she found her boyfriend lying on the sofa reading her copy of _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_ which had been given to her by a grinning Remus the previous Christmas.

"You really need some Anti-Apparition wards," he greeted her. "I could be a Death Eater, you know."

Lily rolled her eyes. "No Death Eater would be reading a book about werewolves, but I'll ask anyway: what was the title of the first poem you wrote me?"

"_Hair of Fire_. Or was it _Eyes As Green As Grass_? I forget. I'm just glad I didn't give them to you, 'cause they were awful. When did you first decide that you liked me?"

"Sixth year, after you helped me with my Transfiguration homework. I, uh, have something to tell you."

"Oh?"

James put the book down and properly looked at his girlfriend for the first time. Her hair was wet after her shower, making it look darker. This also made her seem slightly paler than usual. She was wearing a T-shirt that matched the one he was wearing, old jeans, and no make-up. She moved over to sit down next to him.

"It's not good," she began.

"Are you breaking up with me?"

Lily laughed. "No, James. Though I couldn't even if I wanted to now – not that I _do_ want to, because I love you, and how would I spend time with the others if we split up?"

"So you love them more than me?" James asked innocently, smiling.

"I only agreed to go out with you so I could hang around them. I can't believe you haven't worked that out yet!"

"Oh, shut up," James said, hitting her over the head with _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_. "So what was that about not being able to break up with me?"

"Oh. Yeah. Um... well, about that..."

James stood up and wandered into her kitchen to grab them both a Butterbeer. "Spit it out, love!"

"I'm pregnant."

Lily actually saw the colour leave his face as he placed the Butterbeers on the table.

"_What?_"

"I, uh, took a test, and -" James Disapparated. "You bastard," Lily finished miserably. He'd obviously gone back to the flat he and Sirius shared, where the remaining boys were having some sort of male bonding session. Lily wondered what they were doing. Surely, James would tell the boys the news. She wasn't sure what would happen after that, though. Remus might try to talk some sense into him. Remus was good at things like that. But James surely didn't want to become a father at nineteen. Come to think of it, she didn't want to be a mother at nineteen, though she didn't seem to have much choice in the matter. Bloody James did, though. He could run away somewhere and refuse to help her raise the child.

No, of course he wouldn't do that. Strange as it was, James loved her, and was all nice and honourable and _Gryffindor._ He probably just needed to take in the news. Still, Disapparating when she was halfway through a sentence was unnecessarily rude.

In an attempt to stop thinking, Lily picked up _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_ and began to read. Sure enough, a tall, thin, slightly ashamed-looking boy appeared out of the fireplace when Lily had just finished the third chapter.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm an idiot, and I overreacted."

"Understandable," Lily shrugged. "I might murder you if you ever do that again, though."

"Fair enough," he grinned. "So. We're gonna be parents."

Lily winced. "Don't say it like that, it makes us sound old."

"It's the truth! But, um, we should probably get married first. I mean, I doubt our parents will be too thrilled if we have a kid without being married."

Lily blinked. "Was that a proposal?"

James paused, frowned, and stared at her. "I suppose it was. Sorry, it was rubbish. I can do it again if you like?"

"No, it's fine. Not exactly the way I'd imagined, but I never expected to be pregnant at nineteen either, so what can you do?"

James smiled. "Oh, good. Sirius is best man, by the way – I already asked him."

Lily chuckled. She'd always expected to end up marrying a nice, romantic man, preferably _after_ she'd turned twenty-two, and she'd have the children several years after the marriage. Instead, she'd suddenly become engaged to this idiot who asked his mate to be best man before he asked his girlfriend to be his wife. Not that she expected anything more of James, really. She and Sirius both knew that James loved them equally; but the eight years of friendship versus the two years of dating often meant that Sirius was told things first.

"When are you thinking, then?"

"For the wedding? I dunno, before you start showing, probably. When would that be?"

Lily frowned. "I'm not sure. Do we have to talk about this now? Today's been stressful enough, what with discovering I'm pregnant and getting engaged..."

"You only found out _today_?"

"Well, yes." Lily yawned. "Are you staying tonight? I'm exhausted."

James shook his head. "I told Sirius I'd go back. I'll leave you to go to bed then, if you're tired. I love you," he said, kissed her, and went back over to the fireplace. "Come round tomorrow night. Remus and Peter are coming, and they don't know yet."

"Okay then. Love you," Lily said.

"Love you too," he replied, before getting back into the fireplace. Lily's eyes closed, she dropped her book, and fell asleep against the arm of the sofa.


End file.
